There are few people we know that have gotten more tube time in than Ricky. Here are just a couple of clips to prove it.

At 38 years old, flying-under-the-radar is exactly what Ricky has done these last 18 years. While he didn’t start surfing until his late teens, he’s been more shacked than most in Indonesia in the years since, and you’ve likely never heard of him. Which is perfectly fine. Ricky, like the rest of the Drifter Ambassadors, is motivated by the tube, not by notoriety.

Drifter Surf - The Art of Surfing

An entry for the history books – it’s been a phenomenal weekend at The Wave in Bristol, delivering the biggest surf event at the venue since the doors opened late 2019. We firmly pushed the boundaries of our knowledge, having developed a new format for the event which ran seamlessly, and overall delivered a surf contest that everyone involved in should be immensely proud of. A firm showcasing of why Surfing England are at the forefront of the surf industry and development of the sport in England.

This was the 2023 korev lager English Interclub Surfing Championships, where we welcomed 9 clubs and 130 surfers from across the country to Bristol, to compete and celebrate the surf club community. We had new clubs joining us to compete at this event and we were off the charts stoked. Running at The Wave offered up guaranteed waves and a fantastic amphitheatre venue to watch the action, and for everyone turning up for a regular surf lesson, what an inspiring weekend to have landed on.

The sunshine that aligned was an added bonus – illuminating the turquoise waters, as the waves rolled through the lake. It couldn’t have gotten any better for an Autumnal weekend. On Saturday morning everyone came together for check in and briefings, and you could feel the nerves radiating and excitement building. Rapidly brought up to speed by our expert team, everyone was stoked to know they were getting their fix of advanced waves.

The moment everyone had been waiting for – the korev lager keg crowning championships, supported by dryrobe. This was a separate event to the main contest, and was a battle of the barrels, which 40% of surfers got the opportunity to compete in. It was down to the teams to nominate their surfers for this round, which wrapped the end of each day. Surfers had to surf forehand and backhand barrels to end the event crowned champion open and woman barrel rider.

Charging through the heats on Saturday, all surfers had a warm-up set, then were scored on rotation, and given the opportunity to free surf as many waves as we could offer up. In the water, the teams were closely watching the fellow clubs in the lake to see what maneuverers they were pulling off and knowing what they had to do to get the points on the board.

In spare time between surfing, the skate ramp was in constant use, and surf skates were whipping around the smooth shoreline, the surfers and Wave staff clearly getting a little competitive with one another! Saturday afternoon was also soundtracked with a line-up of musicians and DJs to set the vibe into the evening – thanks to The Wave for organising this.

At the end of day one, everyone was glued to the pier to watch the barrels eating up the bay. Back-to-back the surfers got the chance to try and get pitted. There were some snarls, some slams, and some serious cover ups. The crowd were elated, and this set the tone for the rest of the contest.

Sunday morning, the mist hugged the lake as the sun rose on a glorious day. The women took to the water first and charged hard, having known their placings from the end of day 1 and the underdogs keen to storm into the lead. The surfing continued with the open surfers taking to the water, and once again the placings were tight, and everyone knew there was no time for errors if they wanted to come out with champion placings.

Completing Sunday, 1-2pm the korev lager kegs event continued. The surfers all knew their points from day one, and now it was a focused session on their backhand or forehand depending which side of the lake they got pitted on day one. This aspect of the contest was to showcase the high-performance side of club surfing and the best all round barrel riders. When it came to crunch it was the Betteridge brother and sister duo who came out on top; our huge congratulations to Belle (Women’s Crowning) and Beau Betteridge (Open crowning).

When the event drew to close, St Agnes Surf Lifesaving Club women came out as Champions, based on overall day one and two combined. In the Open, Croyde Surf Club held onto their lead, taking home Champion status.

The overall club leaderboard had been under wraps throughout, setting the tone for a tense presentation, every ear hooked on Martin Reay’s recap of the event. The points were in, the scores were nerve-rackingly close, but just nudging it to claim 2023 Interclub Champions was Croyde Surf Club, who were off the charts stoked – congratulations!

RESULTS:

Club Champions

1   Croyde Surf Club

Women Champions

1   St. Agnes Surf Lifesaving Club

Open Champions

1   Croyde Surf Club

Korev Lager keg crowning OPEN surfer, supported by dryrobe

1   Beau Betteridge

Korev Lager keg crowning WOMEN surfer, supported by dryrobe

1   Belle Betteridge

Thank you to our fantastic headline partners korev lager and to all our brilliant partners  Caravan and Motorhome Club and to our amazing partners Caravan and Motorhome Club, The Wave, dryrobe, Muscle Food, Decathlon UK, Clarke Willmott, Vospers 

The Gathering of the Clans 2023 took place at Pease Bay for the first time ever on the weekend of the 7th and 8th of October 2023 with the North Shore Surf Club (NSSC) victorious once again defending the title of Inter-Club champions for the 6th consecutive year running. Conditions were testing on Saturday, big and stormy, for the Open Men’s first round – but things cleaned up on Sunday and Pease provided pumping clean head high sets.

There were 8 teams from all over Scotland (two from the host club) each comprised of two Open Men, two Open women, one Master, one Longboarder, one Junior Boy and one Junior Girl who would battle it out for the Gathering of the Clans sword and quiach. The overall team results were as follows:

This year was hotly contested between our event hosts Belhaven Surf Club (BHSC) and the North Shore Surf Club (NSSC) with Belhaven taking the win in the Masters division and runner up spots in both the Longboard and Open Women’s divisions.
Sam Christopherson (BHSC) was able to pip Dylan MacDonald (NSSC) in the final of the Masters division with a combo of turns to the beach, despite Dylan holding onto the highest single wave score of the category (6.5pts for a series of slashing backhand carves) and only required 1.3pts to move to 1st place.

It would be Malcolm Findlay of the Broch Surf Club (BSC) who would go on to win the Longboard division with Sam Christopherson (BHSC) in runner up spot and daughter Clover (BHSC) in runner up spot behind Phoebe Strachan (NSSC) in the Open Women’s division in a well fought final after Clover had got the better of Phoebe in the semi-finals.

Ruaridh Farquharson of the Wave Project Scotland (WPS) team and Donald Peace (LSC) also made the finals of the Longboard division behind Malcolm and Sam respectively after some good rides and performances combining both traditional nose riding and conventional turns throughout the event.
It would come down to the open divisions to decide this year’s champions so all finalists were feeling the pressure. Phoebe Strachan (NSSC) had posted the highest heat total of the day in the quarters (13.47pts) so it was no surprise for the current Scottish Champion to go on to scoop the 1000pts for the North Shore Surf Club (NSSC).